Coming To Terms
by ScarletInk314
Summary: What does one do when he loses half of himself? When the other half that's still tethered to this world remains painfully alive? Dedicated to our dearest Fred Weasley, d. 1997.


**Hi everyone! Sorry, I know I shouldn't be sidetracking when I haven't updated The Lioness and the Serpent in a while, but I had to vent some of my long overdue Fred-angstiness, so here you go, guys! Enjoy while I write the next chapter. ;)**

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It had been a month.

His family hardly saw him anymore. Most days he spent in their room, spread out on the floor as his eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling, a wand that was not his own turning slowly between numb fingers.

He couldn't think. Not rationally, at least. That part he knew. At the beginning, the door opened every half-hour as familiar faces asked him the same question, over and over.

"Are you alright?" they asked. "Do you need anything?"

He ignored them. He ignored their stupid questions, their sympathetic faces meant little to him. It was selfish, but George thought only of himself, and what he had lost.

In his mind, the battle took place, repeating certain moments, rewinding at times when it got too hard to bear. It played again and again, only broken by occasional moments where he came back to reality.

It always started with the same scene, right after Voldemort's speech. He would be standing there, speechless. Fred's body would always be lying there, eyes closed and mouth slightly open in a shadow of his trademark grin. It was completely, utterly impossible, because Fred was invincible; he and George were the comedians, the light-bringers of the family. Nothing could touch them when they were together.

But they hadn't been together. Not when Fred—

He always stopped himself before he could complete the thought.

At first, there would be nothing except for pure, unadulterated shock. Sometimes, he saw his own face, naïve and disbelieving of his senses. Contrary to his mother's sobbing figure, or his father's tear-streaked face, he had felt as if his whole body had been deprived of water. He could not cry, not when his eyes were inexplicably dry and his throat parched.

In fact, they never came. Not when it finally started sinking in, and not now.

He had knelt at his twin's head, eyes never leaving the face now so pale in death. Then, when the rage began bubbling from somewhere deep inside, rising to the surface, he had taken the most uncharacteristic delight in punishing those who had done this to their family, to Fred. He was barely aware of himself underneath the curses falling from his mouth, one after the other with terrifying speed, of the merciless slashes his hand directed, and the flashes of light caused by his wand. He only remembered watching with a savage satisfaction as the Death Eaters crumpled before him, knowing that they felt what Fred had gone through. He could hardly even remember when everything had ended, only that by that time he had turned unfeeling and unmoving, back beside the body which his brother had left behind.

Often, he forgot it all ever happened. Sometimes, in the morning, he would wake up without bothering to even look at the other bed, smile, make jokes, eat breakfast, enquire about his family's gaunt, pale faces, then head back upstairs only to be met with a silent, painfully empty room. Occasionally, when he really forgot, he would bring lunch up too, and that was always where it stopped, because there was no one else to eat the second plate of food. And then it would be left there on the bedside table separating their two beds, until someone came in and took it away.

Other times, George tried his utmost to find a way to remind himself of Fred. His brother's bed was hardly dusty; not with all the nights he had spent wrapped in the covers, his face buried in the pillow. Nor were Fred's clothes, although his own were a different story. With increasing frequency he found himself standing stock-still in the darkness of his brother's wardrobe, inhaling the scent of his brother's now unused robes.

He never mistook his reflection for his brother though. Fred could never look like he did now. George tried to avoid the full-length mirror as much as possible. He didn't want to see how pallid and thin he was now. He didn't want to look at himself and recoil in repulsion at the unkempt hair, the stubble on his jaw, the deep, sunken hollows his eyes had become.

Fred's body had been cremated, along with the dozens of other people who had fallen alongside him. George remembered watching blankly that day as his body was engulfed in blue flames, and the ashes handed in a small, black box to his mother. Every night, just before he made an attempt at another sleepless night, he would plod downstairs silently, open the box sitting above the fireplace, stare into it without any thought or reason behind the action, close it and then return back to the refuge of his room.

Tonight, it was the same. As he saw the clock on his wall strike eleven, George got up from the floor where he had been lying unmoving for the past hour, and shuffled to the door. Opening it, he made his way downstairs with the agility and speed of an old, tired man. Ignoring his muscles protesting from the abuse of the hard wooden floor of his bedroom, he reached up towards the mantelpiece, a now bony hand locking around the tiny box.

His fingers moved without hesitation, instinctively lifting the latch that held the container closed. The small pile of dust, all that remained of Fred, lay inside. He eyed the ashes patiently with an expression like that of one who was merely having a conversation, his thumbs absently tracing the carvings on the exterior of the ebony box.

"George?"

He nearly dropped the box. "Ginny," he said as his little sister came into view from the shadows of the room. Her eyes dropped from his to the item he held in his hands and after a moment's hesitation, she crossed the room without a word and squeezed into the armchair he was sitting in.

Smaller, delicate hands wrapped around the box as she looked at it silently, as if contemplating what to do. The seconds passed by, slow like honey between them.

Then, finally, she spoke.

"Hi, Fred," she mumbled quietly, her face hidden from him behind a sheet of fiery-red hair. "How are you?"

George remained silent, although his mouth had once again gone dry.

"I hope you're alright, wherever you are," she continued, her voice beginning to tremble. Brushing her hair back from her face, she took a deep breath.

"Listen, Fred. Don't you worry about us, alright? W-We'll be fine, even if we don't look exactly—exactly like we should." she swallowed hard, glancing at George's expressionless face. "But we'll always think of you." She began to cry silently, the tears finally overflowing from her eyes and running in small rivulets down her freckled cheeks.

"Always." she finished, letting the box close with a small _click_, and, turning to George, slowly reached up and wrapped her arms around her older brother.

Sighing, George held his sister as she cried into his shirt.

"He'll stay with us. He's always been here."

"I know," he mumbled, and held her tighter as the tears finally fell.

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**So, there you go!**

**I think I've made it perfectly clear that this will remain very much a oneshot; even if I continued it wouldn't go anywhere anyway. So there you go. Sorry if it sounds lame or something! I tried, I swear...**

**Until next time,**

_**ScarletInk314**_


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